She thought of Tyler’s anger in the driveway, when he’d confronted Nick. Was some of that pain? Resentment? Tyler had been a dick, for sure. But then again, Nick had threatened to kill him.

Who was right? It didn’t feel like either of them was.

“I’m really sorry about your sister,” she said quietly.

Tyler looked up at the sky. “Me, too. I was a crap brother. I wish I could go back and fix it.”

“Do you—”

“Hey.” He looked over, and she could see emotion in his eyes.

“Would it be okay if we talked about something else?”

“Yeah.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “Stop. Something else. Anything. Talk about dance. I was serious, earlier. Why aren’t you trying for a scholarship?”

“You don’t really care.”

“I do, actually. When I was watching you, I was thinking—”

He broke off.

Quinn straightened. “What were you thinking?”

His voice turned sheepish. “Nothing. Forget it.”

She could only imagine what he’d been thinking. “Now you definitely need to tell me. Was it that you didn’t realize a full grown hippo could do spins like that?”

His head snapped around. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I’m not built like a typical dancer.”

“What does that even mean? Are you another one of these girls who tries to live on carrots and hot water?”

She waved the taquito in his face. “No, but I probably should be.”

“You’re insane, baby girl.” He paused and rubbed at his jaw.

“I was thinking that Nick Merrick is one lucky bastard.”

Quinn flushed, pleased.

At the same time, she felt a curl of anger. Sometimes she hated being Nick’s pretend girlfriend.

“Yeah,” Tyler continued, “I don’t know a whole lot about dance—just what I remember from Emily—but if anyone is going for a scholarship, you should be.”

Quinn swallowed. “There’s an application fee, and it’s ex-tremely competitive, and I don’t—it’s just—”

“Afraid of competition?” His eyes were dark and shadowed, his voice rough. “You don’t strike me as the type.”

He did not sound sexy. He did not.

Yeah, she wasn’t convincing herself. “I’m not the type to have a spare hundred bucks lying around, either.”

Tyler winced. “Sorry.”

She shrugged and scowled out at the night. “My whole life is full of almosts. I almost made it on the dance team, until the bitch teacher wanted to get rid of me because of my attitude and my body type. I almost made it as a cheerleader, but they all called me Crisco and acted like I was white trash. I almost had a great—”

She cut herself off. She’d almost said, I almost had a great boyfriend, but then I caught Nick kissing another guy.

“Almost what?” said Tyler.

Quinn shook her head, surprised to feel tears hiding somewhere behind her eyes. “Nothing. What I want always seems just out of reach, you know?”

Tyler sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes I know exactly what you mean.”

CHAPTER 10

Nick’s morning classes crawled by. He could barely stay awake for Dr. Cutter’s physics lecture. He’d come home late again, dragged himself into bed, and replayed his evening with Adam. Their walk. Their studying.

Adam’s secrets.

After learning about that, everything had felt somewhat raw, as if a scab had been scraped off too early. He’d felt the need to proceed slowly, to let trust grow in the space between them. So he’d come in when Adam invited him, but he’d sat on the couch and sipped coffee and talked, keeping his hands to himself.

Nick had been worried that some of his infatuation was because Adam was the first boy he had kissed, the first outlet for years of repressed attraction.

But Adam was smart. He read everything, from genre fiction to biographies to The Economist to a weekly sex advice column.

He could talk about all of it. Nick might have had him beat in chemistry, but Adam had him by a mile in subjective analysis.

He’d never met someone who would genuinely care about his opinion—but then expect him to defend it.

Nick loved it. He loved it so much it’d been hard to leave.

But then he’d leaned in to kiss Adam good night, and he’d seen the flash of vulnerability, reminding him to tread carefully.

That first night, his time with Adam had been like riding a runaway train, having no idea of the destination, just hurtling into the darkness while clinging for dear life. Exciting and terrifying.

Now it felt like someone had pressed a map into his hands and explained how to ease off the throttle.

“Earth to Nicholas. Come in, Mr. Merrick.”

Crap. Dr. Cutter was glaring at him. What were they talking about? Diagrams covered every inch of whiteboard, but Nick hadn’t even cracked his textbook. His notebook was open, but he hadn’t written anything down.

Nick cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I asked if you’d come up with an answer for the third question.”

Nick took another desperate glance at his notebook, as if the answers would have magically appeared. He couldn’t afford to piss off Dr. Cutter, who was already giving him a free pass by letting him retake the unit test he’d bombed yesterday.